A communicating or connected object is equipped with means of communication, generally wireless means, allowing it to exchange data with for example other connected objects, a dedicated central control unit or else a user terminal such as a computer, a tablet or a smartphone. These objects may for example be consumer objects such as a television set, a lamp, a smoke detector, all equipped with means of wireless communication, or else objects designed for the industrial sector such as sensors or control devices, all also equipped with suitable means of communication.
All these objects are generally capable of sending and of receiving information on their state, either in real time or otherwise, or of being requested to perform various actions. For example, in a home automation application, it is possible to remotely control the opening or the closing of blinds, to adjust the heating according to the desired temperature in a room, to switch lights on or off, to measure the quantity of electrical energy consumed, to detect the presence of smoke or of an individual in a room and to communicate this information to a terminal or to a central control unit.
Generally, the prior implementation of a method of association (commonly referred to as “pairing”) allows the terminal to be associated with objects with which it is permitted to communicate, in such a manner as to indicate to the terminal, respectively to the objects, with which object, respectively terminal, it is permitted to communicate. Conventionally, the association protocol is defined by the manufacturer of the connected object or by one of the existing radio communications standards (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.). For example, the method of association may involve the exchange of an association code between the devices to be associated or the learning by each device of an identifier of the device with which it is authorized to communicate.
In view of the diversity of the communications standards and of the increasing number of manufacturers of connected objects, in order to associate several objects with one terminal, it is therefore necessary to ensure that the terminal is equipped with the various appropriate means of radio communications for establishing a dialog with each of these objects, and with the various applications dedicated to the control of each of these objects.
Furthermore, some association procedures may prove to be tedious given that the user sometimes has to input a code formed of a long series of numbers and/or letters several times. In addition, certain association protocols require manual operations on the object itself. For example, it is sometimes necessary to push a button on the object according to a particular sequence. Or, in certain cases, the object may be localized in a place which is difficult to access, or even inaccessible to the user, rendering the pairing complicated or impossible.
The use of a central control unit allows an automatic association with the connected objects from the same manufacturer. However, this solution has certain drawbacks since the diversity, together with the number of objects able to be paired with the central control unit, are limited. Furthermore, the maximum distance allowed between each object and the central control unit is sometimes limited to tens or hundreds of meters.